Transport impacts on atmosphere and climate: Aviation.

Aviation alters the composition of the atmosphere globally and can thus drive climate change and ozone depletion. The last major international assessment of these impacts was made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1999. Here, a comprehensive updated assessment of aviation is provided. Scientific advances since the 1999 assessment have reduced key uncertainties, sharpening the quantitative evaluation, yet the basic conclusions remain the same. The climate impact of aviation is driven by long-term impacts from CO2 emissions and shorter-term impacts from non-CO2 emissions and effects, which include the emissions of water vapour, particles and nitrogen oxides (NO x ). The present-day radiative forcing from aviation (2005) is estimated to be 55 mW m-2 (excluding cirrus cloud enhancement), which represents some 3.5% (range 1.3-10%, 90% likelihood range) of current anthropogenic forcing, or 78 mW m-2 including cirrus cloud enhancement, representing 4.9% of current forcing (range 2-14%, 90% likelihood range). According to two SRES-compatible scenarios, future forcings may increase by factors of 3-4 over 2000 levels, in 2050. The effects of aviation emissions of CO2 on global mean surface temperature last for many hundreds of years (in common with other sources), whilst its non-CO2 effects on temperature last for decades. Much progress has been made in the last ten years on characterizing emissions, although major uncertainties remain over the nature of particles. Emissions of NO x result in production of ozone, a climate warming gas, and the reduction of ambient methane (a cooling effect) although the overall balance is warming, based upon current understanding. These NO x emissions from current subsonic aviation do not appear to deplete stratospheric ozone. Despite the progress made on modelling aviation's impacts on tropospheric chemistry, there remains a significant spread in model results. The knowledge of aviation's impacts on cloudiness has also improved: a limited number of studies have demonstrated an increase in cirrus cloud attributable to aviation although the magnitude varies: however, these trend analyses may be impacted by satellite artefacts. The effect of aviation particles on clouds (with and without contrails) may give rise to either a positive forcing or a negative forcing: the modelling and the underlying processes are highly uncertain, although the overall effect of contrails and enhanced cloudiness is considered to be a positive forcing and could be substantial, compared with other effects. The debate over quantification of aviation impacts has also progressed towards studying potential mitigation and the technological and atmospheric tradeoffs. Current studies are still relatively immature and more work is required to determine optimal technological development paths, which is an aspect that atmospheric science has much to contribute. In terms of alternative fuels, liquid hydrogen represents a possibility and may reduce some of aviation's impacts on climate if the fuel is produced in a carbon-neutral way: such fuel is unlikely to be utilized until a 'hydrogen economy' develops. The introduction of biofuels as a means of reducing CO2 impacts represents a future possibility. However, even over and above land-use concerns and greenhouse gas budget issues, aviation fuels require strict adherence to safety standards and thus require extra processing compared with biofuels destined for other sectors, where the uptake of such fuel may be more beneficial in the first instance.

Impact of ozone mini-holes on the heterogeneous destruction of stratospheric ozone.

A comprehensive study of ozone mini-holes over the mid-latitudes of both hemispheres is presented, based on model simulations with the coupled climate-chemistry model ECHAM4.L39(DLR)/CHEM representing atmospheric conditions in 1960, 1980, 1990 and 2015. Ozone mini-holes are synoptic-scale regions of strongly reduced total ozone, directly associated with tropospheric weather systems. Mini-holes are supposed to have chemical and dynamical impacts on ozone levels. Since ozone levels over northern mid-latitudes show a negative trend of approximately -4%/decade and since it exists a negative correlation between total column ozone and erythemally active solar UV-radiation reaching the surface it is important to understand and assess the processes leading to the observed ozone decline. The simulated mini-hole events are validated with a mini-hole climatology based on daily ozone measurements with the TOMS (total ozone mapping spectrometer) instrument on the satellite Nimbus-7 between 1979 and 1993. Furthermore, possible trends in the event frequency and intensity over the simulation period are assessed. In the northern hemisphere the number of mini-hole events in early winter decreases between 1960 and 1990 and increases towards 2015. In the southern hemisphere a positive trend in mini-hole event frequency is detected between 1960 and 2015 in spring associated with the increasing Antarctic Ozone Hole. Finally, the impact of mini-holes on the stratospheric heterogeneous ozone chemistry is investigated. For this purpose, a computer-based detection routine for mini-holes was developed for the use in ECHAM4.L39(DLR)/CHEM. This method prevents polar stratospheric cloud formation and therefore heterogeneous ozone depletion inside mini-holes. Heterogeneous processes inside mini-holes amount to one third of heterogeneous ozone destruction in general over northern mid- and high-latitudes during winter (January-April) in the simulation.

Dynamic-chemical coupling of the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere region.

The importance of the interaction between chemistry and dynamics in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere for chemical species like ozone is investigated using two chemistry-climate models and a Lagrangian trajectory model. Air parcels from the upper troposphere, i.e. regions of lightning and aircraft emissions, are able to be transported into the lowermost stratosphere (LMS). Trajectory calculations suggest that the main transport pathway runs via the inter tropical convergence zone, across the tropical tropopause and then to higher latitudes, i.e. into the LMS. NOx from aircraft emissions at mid-latitudes are unlikely to perturb the LMS since they are washed-out while still in the troposphere. In contrast, NOx from tropical lightning has the chance to accumulate in the LMS. Because of the longer residence times of NOx in the LMS, compared to the upper troposphere, this excess NOx from lightning has the potential to form ozone in the LMS, which then is transported back to the troposphere at mid-latitudes. In the models, around 10% of the ozone concentration and 50% of the NOx concentration in the northern hemisphere LMS is produced by lightning NOx At least 5% of the ozone concentration and 35% the NOx concentration at 150 hPa at mid-latitudes originates from tropical lightning in the climate-chemistry simulations.